Steve Robinson's blog
(Note: Blogging for Steve Robinson this week, please welcome WFMT Program Director, Peter Whorf--)
I'm very excited about what we've put together to celebrate the 100th birthday of Shostakovich in September. The entire schedule throughout the month features the complete symphonies, operas and concerti of Shostakovich, as well as commentary from the composer taken from the Friday, September 29th special, Shostakovich Speaks. More on that later...
The birthday week itself is loaded with special programming every evening. Our festival begins on Monday, September 25 at 8pm with producer and host Jon Tolansky's I Recall Shostakovich. Jon Tolansky has worked on this special documentary for over a year, chronicling the life and art of Dmitri Shostakovich. The program features commentary from many of the artists who knew and worked with him, including Rostropovich, Sanderling and many others. It's an incredible piece of work, rich in detail and sound.
Tuesday brings Peter VDG's LaSalle Tuesday Night Opera and DSCH's Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk - the work that brought DSCH considerable initial praise. Just two years later (after Stalin attended a performance) it was denounced in Pravda.
On Wednesday at 8pm, we'll re-broadcast Shostakovich:The Seventh and Beyond, which is basically a collage of symphony movements and readings from DSCH letters. Kerry Frumkin is featured throughout the 90-minute special as he reads excerpts of DSCH letters to Leningrad critic and friend Isaac Glickman.
Thursday, Kerry takes our show on the road as WFMT broadcasts live from Avery Fisher Hall. We'll feature the New York Philharmonic with DSCH's Symphony #5 and the first cello concerto with Lynn Harrell. Maazel conducts.
Some of the best is saved for last. Months ago, a listener sent us a recording that he had made off the radio of WFMT's 1973 roundtable with Dmitri Shostakovich - discussing contemporary music and his own compositions. Norman Pellegrini hosted the program, which was made upon the occasion of DSCH receiving an honorary doctorate at Northwestern. It's an absolutely amazing document, and we'll hear it in its entirety. It's very "raw" audio in some ways, but it will be like opening a time capsule.
Also, here are a few DSCH images from childhood through his later years.
Hope you enjoy.
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Dear Reader:
As noted in an earlier post, I fell off the blogen and, as you may have noticed, I haven’t posted in quite some time. No excuses! (But please don’t report me to the Better Blogging Bureau.) In any case, if anyone is still interested, these are some notes from my recent trip to Israel.
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THE IDEA OF THE YEAR
Note: I fell off the blogen these past few weeks and I want to apologize to my loyal readers for leaving you in the lurch for so long, especially since I was in Israel for a wonderful week with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. I'm almost finished with my Web diary on the trip and I'll post them Wednesday or Thursday (click here to check the WFMT blog). In the meantime:
I need to share with you an email I received last night from the CSO's Mark Kraemer. Every once in a blue moon someone writes with an idea that is so fantastic one wants to jump up and yell "Eureka!". Mark wrote with such an idea. Here his is note and my response.
"Hi Steve, I wanted to comment on the Merit Focus Group entry (Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this post-which was entered back in May). I wanted to offer a suggestion on how to reach more young listeners. I play in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and I grew up in Wilmette. I went to New Trier High School which had (and still has) a wonderful music program. I played in student orchestras there, and I can remember very clearly when WFMT played music our high school orchestra was working on. It was such a treat (and an inspiration) to hear the music our ensemble was rehearsing played on WFMT by a professional ensemble. What if WFMT could establish an e-mail relationship with area high schools and find out what music was to be played by the band and orchestra at each school? 'FMT could then program some of this music and send an e-mail alert to each school asking the conductor of the ensemble to announce that the piece their group was working on would be played on 'FMT soon. Students could then plan to listen to the piece they were rehearsing in school. I remember I became a lifelong listener, in part, because, as a high school student, I heard the "St. Paul Suite" for strings by Gustav Holst on 'FMT back in the early 70's--the very piece my school string ensemble was working on at the time. I bet there would be high school music students who would appreciate having this same experience today. You may already be doing something like this, but I wanted to pass this idea along--it worked for me! As always, you guys are doing a great job--keep up the good work!"
--Mark Kraemer Bass player-Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Mark: BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is an amazing and sensational idea! Honestly, this blows my mind because it's such a terrific way to connect with schools all over the broadcast area in a highly creative way and in a way, as you suggest, that will help us connect with young listeners. I can already envision a multitude of ways to implement the idea on the air but also on our Web page, for example, by setting up a connection point for high school orchestras and bands to list their repertoire while we list when the various pieces will be programmed on WFMT. Frankly, the idea has been staring me in the face for years because I often relate during pledge drives how thrilled my own daughter was when, as a little girl, we'd be driving in the car and a piece she was practicing would come on the radio and she'd exclaim, "Daddy, that's my piece!" It was such an affirmation of what she was doing so I know exactly what you're talking about, it just never dawned on me to make the connection to your idea. So I'm pretty turned on here by your tremendous email. Again, thanks so much for taking the time to send me your idea. It's without question the IDEA OF THE YEAR as far as I'm concerned. Lets talk soon.
-SR
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It's been an interesting week and I thought I'd use this diary posting to catch up on a little bit of what's been going on.
PLEDGE
WFMT's pledge drive ended on June 21st with wonderful results. We raised $401,000 from 2800 callers and this set a record for an eight-day drive in June. We couldn't be more pleased. I said several times on-air that "we just got a call from Bill Gates offering to pledge $200 million with the proviso that we don't do any more pledge drives, and I turned him down because we enjoy doing them too much to give them up." Hahaha. Actually, we do enjoy doing them because it's a great opportunity to speak to our listeners and hear what they have to say about the station. This type of interaction is unique to a listener-supported station and is very important to us. Another point all of us make on-the-air is that a pledge to WFMT is really a way of supporting virtually every classical music ensemble in town because WFMT is devoted to so many organizations. The list is very long but just a few of the groups we work with include the Lyric Opera, Music in the Loft, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Elgin Symphony, University of Chicago, City of Chicago, Music Institute of Chicago, Chicago Sinfonietta, Harris Theater, Merit School of Music, Ars Viva, Ravinia and too many more to list here. So to have such a record-breaking June drive makes everyone at WFMT feel terrific. If you pledged, thanks very much!
TRIP TO ISRAEL
The WFMT Radio Network has been talking with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) for over two years about producing a 13-part series of broadcast concerts. Happily, a few weeks ago, the IPO called to say they were able to raise the funds necessary to pull it off and they would like the series to begin in October. Itzhak Perlman will host the series... October 2006! Yikes. This means moving into high gear as fast as possible, and we've done just that. WFMT's Jan Weller is going to produce and he'll join me in Tel Aviv next week to conduct a few dozen interviews with musicians in the orchestra, orchestra management, patrons, critics, historians, Zubin Mehta, and others we encounter during the week that we'll be there. It's going to be a whirlwind trip. I'll still be there when my next blog posting is due, so I'll write from Tel Aviv next week.
THE SILK ROAD to HIGHLAND PARK
On Monday, June 26th, WFMT broadcast Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble concert live from the Pritzker Pavilion. It was a spectacular event. Yo-Yo and his ensemble offered a marvelous evening of music notable for its richness and variety. Yo-Yo was the perfect MC for the concert. Every seat at the Pritzker was filled and the lawn was jammed. I was told something like 25,000 people heard the concert. Thousands more heard it on WFMT and on the WFMT Radio Network, where it was broadcast live. The host was WFMT's Lisa Flynn with engineering by the amazing Eric Arunas, who offered listeners a sound mix that left nothing out and was superbly balanced and focused throughout. The broadcast was underwritten by Sony Classical and I was delighted that Michelle Errante, my contact at Sony, came in from New York for the event.
From there I zipped up to Ravinia to catch the end of Jonathan Biss' recital at the Martin, where I met with Suzanne Ponsot from the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Suzanne and I met earlier in the day with the major donor to the IPO broadcast. After Jonathan's recital, we repaired to a nearby restaurant to meet and discuss the impending series. A few minutes into our discussion, in-walked pianist Jeffrey Siegel, just in from a performance at the Music Institute of Chicago. It turns out that Jeffrey and Suzanne are old friends, so the evening ended on a most convivial note.
Back to the Silk Road for a minute: last year, WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network produced a live broadcast of Yo-Yo's Orchestra Hall Silk Road performance. I was poking around his site the other day (www.yo-yoma.com) and discovered that the entire broadcast, hosted by Jan Weller and engineered by Eric, is available on-demand on the site! The fidelity is amazing and shows, among other things, how far audio has progressed on the Web. Does anyone remember realaudio 1.0? It sounded like short wave radio! (To find the broadcast, scroll all the way down the home page and you'll find it near the bottom.)
JEFFREY SIEGEL
On Wednesday, Jeffrey gave one of his patented Keyboard Conversation concerts at the Martin Theater. Jeffrey has been touring his “Keyboard Conversations” to over a dozen cities in the U.S. for over 25 years, including a series at Northwestern—this was his first “Keyboard Conversation” at Ravinia. His subject was the music of Robert Schumann and he gave his usual insightful lecture/performance, focusing mainly in Schumann's earlier works for the keyboard. Jeffrey is a fine pianist but I thought he outdid himself last Wednesday with a truly stellar performance.
CENTER ON HALSTED
Over the past few years, it's been my pleasure to host one-hour programs on behalf of Chicago area organizations that are engaged in capital campaigns. I've done them with the Music Institute of Chicago, Harris Theater and Merit School of Music. Several months ago I was introduced to people involved with a capital campaign for the Center on Halsted.
To quote from the Center's website (www.centeronhalsted.org): "To achieve this vision and create a place where people can come together to play, learn, and talk to one another, the Center’s mission is as follows:
In a safe and nurturing environment, the Center on Halsted serves as a catalyst for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) community that links and provides community resources, and enriches life experiences."
Three aspects of the Center's campaign intrigued me. First, the new building they are constructing on Halsted is extraordinary for its openness, creative use of space and architectural beauty. Second, the building will contain a theater that the Center intends on utilizing for music and other performances on a constant basis. In fact, they've already formed a strong link with the Chicago Chamber Musicians. Third, unlike the three capital campaigns mentioned above, the Center was at the end of their campaign and was entering what they call their "public phase." I therefore thought it was a great opportunity for a radio program.
The program was produced by WFMT's program director, Peter Whorf, and aired on Saturday morning. My guests were Robbin Burr, executive director, and Robert Kohl, chair of the board. The program discussed the new building, the capital campaign and the cultural activities planned for the theater. Shortly after the program ended, I received two voicemails from listeners. Here are word for word transcripts:
"I've been going to the Center on Halsted since January and I must admit I'm a whole better, nicer, more wonderful person since I've been going there and I'm really pleased and surprised they are getting some mentions so thank you for taking the time. Even though I miss the music, I do think it's very, very important for the gay, lesbian, transgender community to get this kind of information out. So thank you very much for your time and consideration and your help...Lord knows we do need it."
Second call.
"I am a Fine Arts Circle member and I'm absolutely discouraged and disappointed at this program about the gay and lesbian center. We do not want to have our money on the Fine Arts membership funding this type of thing. You are offensive and disgraceful. You ought to stop this type of thing or we're going to withdraw financial support in a large way if you don't stop. That is an offensive program."
And so it goes...
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I produced and announced my first radio membership drive in 1968, and have done at least three per year every year since then. In some years, for example, when I was working at WBGO/Jazz 88 in Newark and was invited for three straight years by the station I had just left (Vermont Public Radio) to be one of the main voices for their drive, totaling six pledge drives a year for three years.
I’ve probably been involved in close to 200 pledge drives in the past 38 years in, making me--with the possible exception of Henry Fogel--the most experienced radio pledge person in the history of American radio. That along with $2 and I’m still short the price of a cappuccino at Starbucks.
Seriously, I love pledge drives. They are unique in radio because it’s the one chance we have (ok, it's one of three chances per year...) to interact directly with the audience. I especially love taking pledge calls when the phones get really busy because I get to talk directly with listeners and find out what they like about the station. Listeners aren’t shy so it’s not uncommon to take a pledge on the phone and then get an earful about what the caller doesn’t like, as well. But that’s all part of the fun. In fact I said several times on the air at WFMT the other day that “Bill Gates called with a $120 million pledge but he stipulated that in order to qualify for the money we had to stop doing pledge drives and I had to politely turn him down because I told him we love the interaction too much and I’d miss it”.
Some who heard me may have guessed I was only kidding, but the idea remains: I love pledge drives. And I’m not alone: the late Ray Nordstrand, a master of ratings, numbers and the other mathematical devices we use to track listenership said that during pledge, listenership actually increases! My pledge drive philosophy all these years has been to try and “put the fun into fundraising.” Also, “it’s not what you say it’s how you say it”, meaning that the enthusiasm in ones voice is far more important than what one actually says on the air. I like to tell people that I’ve only shuffled around about 10 different sentences over the past 38 years, but I’m successful at it because of the enthusiasm I’m able to project in my voice.
One of my main techniques is to do virtually all of my on-air work (known in the trade by the highly technical term “pitching”) in the phone room with the volunteers. I call it working “out in the trenches.” The pitchers at almost all radio stations lock themselves up in the control room and make oblique references to the phone room. Crazy! The action is out where the phones are ringing and I often do on-air interviews with volunteers about their love for the station during pledge breaks. More often than not, they have far more original observations to make and offer listeners more interesting reasons to call than I do (see 10 sentence comment above). (An illustration of how effective this can be happened many years ago when I was single and living in New York and I actually asked a volunteer out on a date during one of my impromptu on-air interviews. It was all very low-key and most of the people at the station missed it but the volunteer said how much she enjoyed music and the station. I asked her what she was doing after her pledge shift was over. She said not much and I suggested we go to the Village Vanguard to hear some music. She thought that was a splendid idea, and so we did. We dated for a year. I’m not sure you needed to know that but there you go anyway.)
As far as I know, WFMT is the only station in the United States that 1) is commercial, 2) has all commercials read by the announcers with no pre-produced “jingle” type commercials that rattle ones ears and nerves, 3) is non-profit and 4) is member supported. In fact, our entire membership effort was created because of the income we were losing year after year from #2 above: many agencies would not place ads on WFMT because of the “read only” policy so the Fine Arts Circle was created to make up some of that income.
In the years since the Fine Arts Circle was created, millions have been pledged by loyal listeners in our three pledge drives per year. We now have over 22,000 members and our membership income has grown each year to the present: over $2.5 million per year. At the moment, we’re in Day Five of our June pledge drive and doing very well. In efforts to balance the books, we started the drive last Tuesday needing $495,000 and as of this writing (Monday morning) we have about $160,000 to go. Since we’ve been known to come close to $90,000 or even $100,000 on the final day of a drive (this one is scheduled to end on Wednesday) the goal is within sight and we’re confident of making the goal.
All announcers are firing on all cylinders and all shifts have been successful. There are too many highlights to this drive to mention them all but some include: Henry Fogel’s two on-air shifts on Saturday and Monday morning ignited the phones as they always do; Andy Karzas split the uprights on Saturday afternoon (as he always does) and was joined this time by Norman Pelligrini who heaped considerable praise on Andy for his spectacular program, From the Recording Horn, which has been on WFMT for decades and, to my way of thinking, is the finest program of its kind on American radio. Norman also discussed the book he’s just published about opera in Chicago.
The Midnight Special hit it out of the park on Saturday night, as it usually does, but it never ceases to amaze me that this three-hour program on Saturday night typically accounts for about 10% of the total raised on the entire drive, a tribute, to be sure, to Rich Warren’s dedication to the program listeners’ dedication to him; and countless other highs too numerous to mention.
The goal going into the drive was $395,000. This is hugely ambitious for a June pledge drive (totals are always higher in October and February) and we think we’re on target if we get over $300,000 but as of Monday night, with just $135,000 to go it appears as of we’ll make it and, if so, or even if we come close, it will set a record for a June pledge.
As I often say on the air, a call and a pledge to (773) 279-2010 represents support not only for WFMT, but also for many other performing arts and other organizations in and around Chicago. This is because WFMT works with an amazing array of groups, from the Lyric, CSO and Ravinia to the Merit School of Music, Music in the Loft, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Ars Viva, Chicago Opera Theater and dozens of others.
Therefore, our success is their success. When the drive ends on Wednesday, I'll provide the final set of figures. Until then, congratulations to everyone involved in the drive, and also to all the arts organizations who help make WFMT's air sound so wonderful.
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My thanks to those who posted comments regarding my recent diary entry about the Merit Focus Group. I'm happy to offer my reaction to some of your observations.
---"given your original goal to raise more listeners in the coveted 25-54 y.o. category, more kids talking on WFMT would be a distinct turn-off. Unless you hope to engage the kid's parents, how would this help attract the desired demographic?"---
Actually, some of the young people in the Merit focus group were in their 20's and in college. Most were younger, but if you read the comment posted below from one of the high school students, you'll hopefully be surprised at the level of maturity and sophistication they bring to their thinking about music.
---"Your program, "From the Top," already offers a sufficiency of young people chatter and I assiduously avoid the broadcast."---
Early in my career a radio manager I admired and learned a great deal from said something about how he programmed the station that I've always remembered. He said, "If there aren't at least two hours per week on this station that each listener can't stand then I'm doing something wrong." That was 35 years ago and it’s going a little far with respect to WFMT today—I hope From the Top is the only program you try to avoid but there is wisdom in that statement.
---"As to kid's opinions of whether or not there is too much vocal or opera on WFMT, I give not a whit of credence to their judgment or opinion. I enjoy ALL of the vocal and operatic programming that your radio service does so well."---
We have no plans to change the way we program vocal and operatic music on WFMT. Nonetheless, I was surprised by what the Merit young people had to say about opera and I feel their comments deserve attention...not because we're going to change anything, but because they've given us a hint that we need to think about how we present vocal and operatic music.
---"Band and wind ensemble music can be done marvelously well and the various groups that do it well are usually at the college or adult level. Please spare us the inevitable torture of a high school version."---
There are many wonderful pre-college ensembles in the region that deserve to be on the radio. If we work hard to find the best ones, I'm sure they'll be well received by our listeners. In fact, while I don't think we've had a high school wind ensemble on lately, we've had student choirs and chamber ensembles on WFMT, and some of them are truly astonishing.
---"I'm not a Midnight Special or Folkstage listener. However, kids singing folk music I will also take a pass on that as well."---
We'll have to let Rich Warren make the final judgment on that.
---"Having representatives from WFMT get out into the community is excellent advice and would be welcome at schools, universities and job fairs."---
Agreed.
---"Please don't go to any more kid's programming. Where did you ever get the notion that your core audience would endorse this pandering?"---
I think that depends on how you define "kids' programming." Please take a look at the letter the Merit student wrote to us a few hours ago. It's posted below.
---"I do not think that altering the character of the station would attract the young generation to WFMT."---
We have no intention of altering the character of WFMT. It has served the region with great distinction and success for nearly 55 years. The challenge is to figure out how to make the station more appealing to younger listeners without changing the fundamentals. It's a difficult challenge, but one worth pursuing.
The following is the aforementioned note received on Wednesday, written by one of the young people from Merit who attended the focus group. His comments are extremely thoughtful and I can imagine him selecting a few hours of music and co-hosting a shift some day with one of our announcers. The note was address to Noel Morris, the producer of Exploring Music:
We met this past Saturday in a focus group at Merit. First, I would like to congratulate you on making such a wonderful production: week after week after week. Its got to be as hard as writing a symphony like Haydn, which was the subject of yesterday's "lesson". I listened and enjoyed as always, except this time while critically thinking. So now I have a few comments, as you asked.
First, I like how Bill M. opened the "lesson" by explaining the scale, and the important notes in the scale as they relate to dominant and tonic chords. However, it became fuzzy when he tried to relate it to the symphony. Though I understand the theory of music very well, I couldn't see how Bill M. planned on relating the dominant/tonic chords to the symphony. My suggestion is to play a passage in the symphony on the piano that fiddles around the dominant. Then play its resolution.
Second, after playing the London Symphony, I really enjoyed hearing Bill M. dissect the melody as it passes though different instrumentation and key areas. This was perfect! I think, however, that it would be better for the untrained listener to hear that explanation before he plays the whole symphony. This way, when they hear it in context it "clicks!" the listener retains the information better, and has a greater understanding.
Third, I would have like to hear more about how the symphonic form developed for Haydn: Tempo marking, number of movements, instrumentation. He did touch on the latter a tiny bit, but a little more depth would really have driven home the, "Under the Hood" subject.
Thank you for wanting my comments.
---Merit Student
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Some weeks ago an article (whose link is no longer available) appeared in the New York Times about a project put together by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The Society organized a group of teenagers to meet once a week to talk with the Society’s artistic directors and others about classical music, as it looks to the group to help them figure out how to reach a younger audience.
I thought this was a splendid idea and called the executive director of the Merit School of Music, Duffie Adelson, to see if she could put together a group of kids to help WFMT figure out the same thing. Because although WFMT ranks 15th out of 40 stations in Chicago in total audience (about 375,000 people tune us in at least once a week) we could be doing much better in the all-important demographic category of 25 to 54 year old listeners.
Saturday morning, Duffie managed to get six or seven young people together in a room to talk about WFMT. Three or four adults showed up, as well. These were young people who were already turned on to classical music and to WFMT because all Duffie did was put up a notice offering the opportunity to speak to people from WFMT. She didn’t corral them into the session -- they volunteered. In the rough order in which they came out, here are some of the ideas and observations they offered:
- Put on a day-long party for young people where you talk about the station and classical music in a variety of ways. Make it fun and interesting, in that order!
- Put more young musicians on the air. Not just soloists (which you already do) but chamber and larger ensembles such as bands and choirs. That will help spread the word about WFMT.
- Get kids to perform on your folk music programs. There are a lot of gifted kids out there who sing folk music.
- I like it when you give information about the music or the composer before you broadcast a composition. (Our announcers do quite a bit of this, and do it very well.)
- Way too much opera and vocal music. (They were all in agreement about that; except one parent, who felt compelled to say her week was not complete with the opera on Saturday afternoon.)
- I study the flute and I’ve met the CSO’s principle flautist, Matthew Dufour. He gave me a lesson once. I’d like to interview him on WFMT.
- I’d like to co-host a shift on WFMT. I’ll pick the music and the announcer can talk to me about my choices.
- From a parent: outreach! You need to get out into the community more. I’ve been listening to WFMT for 35 years and I can pinpoint the day I started. It was when Jim Unrath came to our school and gave a talk. He turned me on to WFMT and every time I heard his voice from that point on it meant a great deal to me and I've been listening ever since.
- Today Rachel Barton Pine was on the air with two of her students. We caught some of it but only by accident. You should send out emails every time something special is about to happen. (Note: we send out an email blast about twice a month. Clearly, that’s not often enough.)
- You need more diversity in your programming. Latin American and African American composers, for example. And newer music. Not necessarily way out stuff, but stuff that you can listen to but by younger composers who are still around.
- You need to get away from the stereotypical way people think of classical music which is that it’s stern and difficult. Loosen up. When I listen I sometimes feel as if I’m “locked up in a protocol.”
- Broadcast more music for band and wind ensembles because a lot of kids play in them at school.
Throughout the 90 minutes we spent with these young people, we heard about two programs over and over and over again; From the Top and Exploring Music. They all loved these programs, especially Exploring Music.
I was joined this morning by the producer of Exploring Music, Noel Morris, and her husband, Vic Muenzer. Both Noel and Vic are passionate about the need to introduce young people to classical music. Vic is the conductor of the Imagination Symphony in Oak Park. We were also joined by Ruth Kane, who is a development specialist and is interested in helping turn young people on to classical music. Vic and Noel recorded everything on tape.
My great thanks to Vic, Noel and Ruth for joining me and coming up with some great questions. We’ll edit the tape at some point and put it on our Web site. I concluded the session by asking the young people to record endorsements for our next pledge drive, so you’ll hear some of their voices in June.
If you have suggestions for ways to attract a younger audience to classical music, please post your thoughts. I think I can speak for all of the organizations associated with chicagoclassicalmusic.org when I say that we’re all trying to attract young people to participate in our events, so we’d all be interested in your comments, observations and suggestions.
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I must say it’s an honor to be a part of chicagoclassicalmusic.org. It was a few short months ago that I attended the organizational meeting at the invitation of the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Jim Hirsch. I knew from the outset that the idea had great potential; I just never thought it would develop as fast as it has. My hat is off to everyone involved, and it’s my pleasure to join with my colleagues on this Web site to provide information about the goings on at WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network. Special thanks to WFMT’s Matt DeStefano for updating the site on WFMT programming, and to Jim Hirsch for urging me to join and participate.
By way of introduction, I’ve been involved with classical (and jazz) radio for nearly 40 years. Managing WFMT and the Network is the most exciting job I’ve ever had. The opportunity to work with such amazingly gifted and dedicated people is an honor and I love the twin challenges of increasing the audience for classical music on WFMT and increasing the range and scope of Network programming. If you’d like to find out more about my checkered career, click here. I maintain a Web diary (otherwise known as a blog, but that word sounds like someone is throwing up, so I avoid it...) at wfmt.com.
Introductions out of the way, here is my first entry:
While many radio stations are looking over their shoulders in fear of competition from satellite radio, the Internet and the iPod, we embrace all three at WFMT and welcome the challenge of staying relevant and interesting alongside these new technologies: we are developing new ways of using the Internet, sent literally hundreds of hours of Network programs to XM Satellite Radio, and I am excited to say that we are responsible for one of the first-ever extended radio programs to be offered for sale on iTunes (our two-hour program, “Pavarotti: The Legend at 70”). But we’ve only scratched the surface on all three.
With the classical music record industry usually in such dire straights, I’ve never understood why there isn’t a stronger connection between the labels and classical music radio stations. After all, in pop music, music radio stations and record companies are wedded at the hip; one can’t exist without the other. Why not in classical music as well?
On Thursday at 1:00 p.m. CST, WFMT will join with Los Angeles commercial classical station KMZT for a live mini-recital featuring EMI recording artist, Gabriela Montero. I’ve wanted to produce a live concert for broadcast in multiple markets for a long time. It’s part of my desire to form a stronger alliance between record companies and classical music stations. In this instance we have a willing partner in the classical music division of EMI—in particular Mark Forlow, a veteran of the company who is supporting the broadcast with advertising on both stations. I’ve also found a willing partner in Saul Levine, the owner/manager of the commercial classical station in Los Angeles, KMZT, also known as K-Mozart. (Saul was also a very willing partner in our live broadcasts from Salzburg on Mozart’s birthday back in January.) He told me that he loves the idea of broadcasting live music on the radio.
This broadcast a bit unusual in that the gifted young musician who will grace our airwaves for this special half-hour broadcast (Gabriela Montero) won’t be in Chicago or Los Angeles. The Venezuelan-born pianist will instead be in a studio in Manhattan, wearing headphones and speaking with WFMT announcer Jan Weller, as well as the announcer at KMZT. It remains to be seen whether we can get all the technical details worked out so that we can pull this off without any hitches, but I’m assured by the NYC studio that it should be very easy. (That’s what they always say.) To add more marketing power to the effort, the commercial classical station in New York, WQXR, will air the music portion of the broadcast the following week.
Gabriela made her New York Philharmonic debut last month in a concert produced and broadcast by the WFMT Radio Network. Her most recent release contains music by Chopin, Falla, Grandados, Ginastera, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Scriabin. She loves to improvise, and does plenty of it on a soon to be released EMI album where she takes-off on the music of Bach—the result is compelling. I hope she’ll do some jamming on Thursday. More information about Gabriela can be found at EMI Classics.
If this broadcast succeeds, others will follow. Please tune in on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. CST and if you get a minute, please let me know what you think.
Stay tuned.
SR
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